How to piss off the Swiss

Despite the fact that they are ridiculously outdoorsy and crazy for wrinkle-free sportswear, the Swiss are seriously obsessed with chocolate. And not just in a platonic, business-like way. Although Switzerland is a major producer and exporter of chocolate (you need only look around Geneva, a town which, until recently, had no health food stores but at least 30 chocolate shops) in fact the Swiss consume more than 50% of the chocolate they produce. That is one serious sweet tooth, making the Swiss the consumers of the largest amount of chocolate per capita in the world. And, just like other Swiss past-times – eating cheese, skiing, trying to kick foreigners out of the country – chocolate eating is unabashedly pursued by the Swiss in both private and public, such that there are chocolate festivals, chocolate tours, a chocolate museum and even a day spa in which one can have a chocolate bath.

So you can imagine how pissed off Swiss chocolate maker Lindt and Sprüngli, purveyors of those cute little gold chocolate bunnies with red ribbons around their necks, was when a few years ago its Austrian rival, Hauswirth, started making cute little gold chocolate bunnies with red ribbons around their necks. I mean, the nerve! Lindt and Sprüngli were steaming in their lederhosen. They were so pissed off, in fact, that they embarked on an epic court battle with the evil Austrians to have the supremacy of their own bunnies verified in law. That was seven years ago.

Yesterday, the marathon court battle finally ended, with Lindt and Sprüngli emerging as the victors. Many, many Swiss people will sleep a little more soundly tonight as a result.

Moral of the story? Don’t be fooled by the neutrality and the yodelling. The Swiss might be have been content to sit on their hands and let the Nazis do what they like during World War Two, but if you mess with them when it comes to chocolate bunnies, it’ll be World War YOU. Auf Wiedersehen, sucker!